Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by gregs1999 ★★★

  Did Bruce Lee possess Jason Scott Lee, because by God his performance was as if he was brought back to life. It’s the voice, how we carried himself, and the physique. The completely whacky sound effects put me off a lot of the film, especially when Bruce went bowling multiple times, and a lot of them are pretty absurd. I assume a lot of the story was embellished to make an entertaining film.

  Rob Cohen ranked

• Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★ 3

  As I was watching this movie, I couldn't stop but wondering what was this exactly? What am I watching? Is this a biopic or is it a fantasy? Because something about this feature seemed a bit Lynchenean. Almost like a meta movie, cause while I can see many of this things happening on real life, most of it was so wild for me to imagine it ever happened, and if it did, probably the movie turned everything to eleven to the point it left not much room for verosimilitude.

  Also by no means a bad actor, something about Jason Scott Lee's face (especially the shape of his face) always came out a bit distracting. Having seen countless real Bruce Lee…

• Review by AD917 ★★★½

  This Bruce Lee biopic is probably about 90% fantasy, 10% something approximating reality. A lot of it can seem downright silly—especially in its more melodramatic beats, or when Bruce is doing literal battle with his inner demons—and maybe such a standard “rise and fall” formula isn’t the ideal way to capture the spirit of a true iconoclast. But one thing it has to help elevate it above the genre conventions the script shamelessly deals in is a genuinely magnetic lead performance by Jason Scott Lee. Whether he’s in a fight scene, a love scene, or just peeling out on a motorcycle, you can’t take your eyes off him. Everything he does just screams “movie star!” If there was such a thing as justice in this world he’d have had a career on the level of Keanu Reeves or somebody of that stature.

  Co-starring Lauren Holly and her washboard abs.

• Review by _Stephan_ ★★★½ 7

  The Story of Bruce Lee, based on the Book by his Widow Linda Lee, is a pretty good Film in which J. S. Lee does a decent Job as Bruce and has well-staged ( sometimes a bit Exaggerated) Martial Arts Fights.
  And the Film also offers a great Music Score.

• Review by Josh Gillam ★★★★

  Bruce Lee’s life is retold in this biographical drama starring Jason Scott Lee and Lauren Holly, focusing on his rise to fame and relationship with his wife Linda.

  Jason Scott Lee was fantastic in the lead role, perfectly capturing Lee’s ambition, charisma and dedication, and the film itself is a moving tribute to both Lee and his son Brandon, who died shortly before it was released.

  There was a fair bit of artistic license, with several events condensed and changed, including the addition of stylised fight sequences that were intended to be homages to Lee’s films. I really liked the addition of dream sequences showing Lee fighting a representation of his inner demons as it made the film feel more…

• Review by Quiller ★★★

  Apparently, Bruce Lee’s day-to-day life resembled a Hong Kong action movie. At least, that’s what director Rob Cohen (who later helped launch the Fast And Furious franchise) would have us believe. Periodically in the first half of this biopic about Lee, its protagonist (Jason Scott Lee) keeps encountering groups of four or five men who all try to fight him: the kitchen staff at a restaurant after Lee has sex with the hottest waitress there, British sailors who crash a private party Lee is attending, racist bodybuilders who object to Lee’s use of the same gym equipment, etc. I don’t know about you, but if I saw a small Chinese-American man beat the crap out of a friend of mine…

• Review by bilderrahmen ★★★½ 7

  Ersteinmal danke Rob Cohen und ein fast noch grösseres DANKE anRandy Edelman (Music).
  Ohne diesen Score wäre der Film nur die Hälfte wert.

  
  Alleine die Pre-Title Sequenz... Gänsehaut pur !!!
  

  Nein ganz ehrlich, das hier ist/war grosses "neuklassisches" Blockbuster-Kino das einen enormen Unterhaltungswert besitzt. Ich gehe jetzt mal (als Kampfsportbegeisterter und Lee-Freak erster Garde/Epoche/Minute) nicht näher auf Richtigkeit der im Film übertragenen Geschehnisse ein...
  Die Wahrheit liegt wohl "irgendwo dazwischen" und doch Welten davon entfernt.

  
  DOCH …

  
  Ausstattung, Design, Kulissen, Score, Handlung, Schnitt, Kamera, Darsteller (auch wenn es der Jason manchmal "etwas" übertreibt und stellenweise "zu viel öl" aufträgt)-
  Hier wird einfach alles aufgefahren was einen (damals) wirklich "grossen" Streifen ausgemacht hat.

  
  DRAGON- DIE BRUCE LEE STORY nimmt sich Zeit…

• Review by Jacob

  hollywood bruceploitation. a movie about how bruce lee was haunted by and eventually killed by a literal demon. would probably give this 2.5 stars

• Review by Barnaby Starch ★★★

  It was only after the third nightmare demon sequence that I began to consider the possibility that everything I was seeing on screen might not be historically accurate.

• Review by Keith Adams Jr. ★★★★

  Quickie Review
  From the director of DragonHeart,The Fast and the Furious and xXx and the producer of Backdraft and DragonHeartcomes the almost true story of one of the most celebrated martial arts legends of all time: Bruce Lee (Jason Scott Lee). From his childhood in Hong Kong going through rigorous martial arts training to his teenage years that saw him pick fights with some troublemaking types, which led him to go to America at the behest of his doting father (Ric Young), to fulfilling his dream of opening a martial arts school in San Francisco and meeting his future wife Linda (Lauren Holly) to his short time as one of the biggest action stars in the world. Those who have…

• Review by Cory Walter ★★★

  Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is a film made for an American audience and condenses and alters so much of the real Bruce Lees life it's distracting.

  I'm rereading Mathew Polly's biography on Bruce and man was his life more interesting than what this portrays.

  No mention of him being a child actor. No mention of his multiple siblings and everything about his family.
  No mention of his multiple affairs.
  Zero mention of him being a massive stoner.

  Dude was straight up a thug as a teenager who learned Wing Chun so he could be a better street fighter. One thing thing that stuck out though is he uses a toilet pull chain as a weapon early in the movie…

• Review by Steve Hinkle ★★★★ 4

  The Mystery. The Life. The Love. The Legend.

  The story of this legendary Dragon is quite the tale. It’s some fists of facts that bring some fictionalized fury. A fast paced biopic that moves like the B-man did in one of his beat down sessions. As the beat and the pace moves, the details and the in between are kind of blurred about the eastern badass that was Bruce Lee. But nonetheless, still a Kung-Fu treat that gets some kicks.

  I haven’t seen Dragon in a while, so this was a most enjoyable rewatch. It’s been so long that with this watch I noticed a young Michael Cudlitz, so that was nice. Jason Scott Lee (no relation to Bruce), is…